KASEY BALL, Reveille Radio News Reporter:
With University budget cuts ongoing, various academic programs have had to make sacrifices in order to preserve their quality of education with more limited funding. The LSU department of academic programs abroad is an example of where budget cuts are taking a toll. Dr. Harald Leder, director of academic programs abroad, explained in an interview how the cuts have affected his department.
HARALD LEDER (Academic Programs Abroad Director): What is affected is our Swahili Safari program, which is in Tanzania. We are working very, very hard to make it happen at least one last time this year. But of course since we no longer offer Swahili as of next year we are not going to have a Swahili Safari.
BALL: Another part of the program that is affected by cuts is the recruiting process.
LEDER: What affects us is of course our ability to recruit, so we have to get enough students in to the programs to enable them to go and that is a challenge for all the faculty members and us.
BALL: With the loss of the foreign language fourteen, many students are already feeling the effects as they have to look for new courses and even new majors. As study abroad for many students is a major part of the LSU experience, the changes to the program due to cuts are not going unnoticed. International studies junior Aaron Caffarel explains.
AARON CAFFAREL (International Studies Junior): You’re going to see a lot of missed opportunities in terms of students being able to go to certain locations to further their majors. People are going to start to go to places where their credits are going to count.
BALL: As the budget crisis continues, faculty and students in the academic programs abroad department are holding on as well as they can to keep study abroad an integral part of LSU.
Kasey Ball, Reveille Radio News.